DESCRIPTORS Childhood Attitudes; Childhood Interests; Childhood

Experiencing literature is the first step toward becoming a literary critic. The primary task of the literary critic is to understand and explain what is experienced and then to interpret works of literature in relation to all the literature the student knows. To help children grow as critics of literature it is necessary to broaden their experiences by presenting them with the best from among a wide variety of children's literature, old and new. Also, guidance must be given to young critics to encourage insights into the significance of individual literary works and to assist them toward an understanding of literature as a coherent body of interrelated works, relating both to each other and to popular media forms such as advertisements, pop songs, comics, and the situation comedies and police shows of television. To stimulate wider reading, interest inventories with open-ended questions can be used. Word-of-mouth, personal testimonies, book talks, Readers ' Theater presentations, displays, talks by authors, and planned discussions are all successful techniques in helping enlarge children's experience with fine books. The unit approach to literary study is an effective way to help young critics grow in making connections among literary works. Experience, through study examined and clarified, leads to a conception of literature as a coherent structure, to an understanding of how imagination works in the creation of art in words. (Thirty-one references are appended.) (MS) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ***************************t******************************************* fr